High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The League of American Writers was a so-called "mass organization" initiated by the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) in 1935 and terminated in January 1943. A small and elite organization, the League included professional novelists, playwrights, poets, journalists, and literary critics. Despite the prominent role of the CPUSA in the establishment and control of the League, one should not make the assumption that any particular individual on this list was a "Communist," however. The members of the League of American Writers ranged from active and open Communist Party members to "fellow travelers" who consciously followed the party's political line without being subject to the formal discipline of party membership to individuals who merely sympathized with one or another broad policy objective being touted by the League, such as stopping the spread of fascism or supporting the cause of the Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War. Most members...